About Thieves in the Night

by KC Warwick
31 pages / 13500 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-180-8, 1-60370-180-X
Available file types - html. lit, pdf, prc, epub, Sony Reader PDF

Thieves Malin and Jai know they have dangerous job. They managed to stay pretty safe through their talents. Malin can shapeshift; Jai can sense trouble. They don't always escape unscathed, though, and when a burglary goes wrong, the two are forced to take on a job they don't really want.

Trying to escape the clutches of a magic user with an ulterior motive, Malin and Jai meet a man who will change their lives forever, and their view of their own magical talents. Will they be able to escape with their lives, and their love, intact?

Sample

It was one of those murky, foggy nights when it was much easier to travel the rooftops of the city on four feet than struggle through its dark streets on two, and Malin was thankful that he had the choice. Another advantage to this route was that the only predators up here were likely to be other cats. Few of them seemed to have problems with a shape-changer in feline form, which was more than could be said of the human beings who lurked in the alleyways below. As he leaped the space between two buildings, cries and shouts rose up to him and he shivered, his animal senses picking up the smell of blood. Nearly home; he could see the window with its dim light from a guttering candle, and the even dimmer shape of Jai waiting for him. "Home". The word conjured up for him Jai’s presence, not the succession of cold, draughty rooms where they had slept at various times, moving on as necessity, and the intolerance of the landlord, demanded.

He clawed his way down a chimney stack, jumped into a gutter, and finally slid through the casement, which stood open for him. Landing with a soft thud on the dusty floor, he paused for a moment to regain his balance, then changed into his human form and watched as Jai closed the window then swung round to face him.

As always when coming home, Malin wanted to fling himself into Jai’s arms, and, as always, he waited patiently while his partner ran perceptive dark eyes over him, searching for injuries. It was no use trying to pre-empt this; he had learned to put up with it long ago, and eventually to interpret it for what it was: namely one of Jai’s strange ways of saying ‘I love you’. But the need for contact was a cat-thing, and as soon as Jai said “No problems?”, Malin stepped forward and closed his arms tightly around his partner’s lean hard body and hugged him as if they had been separated for weeks instead of hours. After four years, things ought to be cooling off a bit, but he didn’t find that to be the case. He still loved Jai as ardently as he had done when he was sixteen – insofar as they were sure of their ages at all – and Jai had rescued him from a street-gang who didn’t like shape-changers. Their attraction had been instant and mutual; he still remembered Jai standing amongst the bodies of his attackers, that look of intense concentration on his face, saying, “You need someone to look after you. I want it to be me.” Of course, it had taken a long time to get the relationship to where Malin wanted it to be, but that was to be expected with someone as stubborn as Jai was…

But now the object of his ardor was asking, “Did you find what you were looking for?” and Malin released his grip and sat down on the windowsill to answer the inevitable questions.

“Yes, there’s a way in at the back – for a cat. I saw no sign of servants or anyone else, and there appear to be no guards. It was all just as we were told.” He looked up at Jai, saw the dark eyes contract into a frown, and asked, “What?”